Corrales Garden Tour Returns in 2026, Spotlighting Water-Smart Desert Gardening

A two-acre farm pressed against the Bosque will anchor one of five stops on the Corrales Garden Tour when the self-guided event returns May 16, bringing working water-conservation systems and the gardeners who run them into public view.

Running from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the tour is coordinated by Corrales MainStreet, with Sandoval Extension Master Gardeners stationed at each property as docents alongside sustainability experts and property owners. Every attendee receives a printed booklet containing property descriptions and short instructional articles on desert-adapted gardening techniques, then visits the five sites in whatever order they choose.

The bosque-adjacent property is one of the tour's centerpieces: a two-acre site with an orchard, beehives, and pollinator plantings. Another featured stop is a residential-scale farm that sells produce at local farmers markets and practices regenerative soil-building. Across all five properties, visitors will encounter smart irrigation controllers that adjust watering schedules based on local weather data, in-ground cisterns, rainwater capture systems, and beneficial-insect habitat installations used in place of chemical pesticides.

Those solutions are not decorative. The Middle Rio Grande Valley's combination of high summer temperatures, variable irrigation supplies, and limited annual rainfall means Corrales gardeners operate under constraints that make water-smart techniques a practical necessity. Seeing a functional rain-capture cistern or a pollinator corridor in a neighbor's orchard translates theory into something replicable at home.

The tour also places Sandoval County's extension resources front and center. The Master Gardeners serving as on-site docents can walk visitors through the specifics of what they are seeing, from soil amendments to irrigation scheduling, connecting residents to services many may not know are available locally.

Questions about the tour can be directed to Sam Thompson at 505-610-5530. Tickets, route maps, and full details are at visitcorrales.com.